Work Text:
When Dean came home from work, his apartment smelled better than it ever had. Cas was lying on the couch surrounded by blankets and pillows with the laptop and a notebook.
“Honey, I’m home,” Dean sing-songed.
“Dean!” Cas smiled and looked up from the computer. “I did a lot of research and have some good rehab options. I also made dinner. I know that you don’t want to eat carbs, so I made lasagna with veggies instead of noodles and lean chicken instead of ground beef, but there is still some cheese in it. I used the low fat kind though. Is that ok? Will you eat it? I also got stuff to make salad if you want.”
Dean took off his suit jacket and tie, went over to the couch, removed the laptop from Cas’ lap and put it on the coffee table, and took the laptop’s place on top of Cas. “That sounds great, alpha.” Dean scented Cas’ neck. The opioid smell that had clung to him since they met was not as bad, but the pot smell still clung to him. “Did you smoke in my apartment?”
“No, Dean!” Cas sounded offended, “I would never do that! This is our home! Our nest! I want to keep this place safe for you, for us. I went outside to smoke. But I haven’t popped any pills today. I want to get clean for you.” Cas looked away from Dean and stared at the floor, “For us.”
“You smell better today.” Dean relaxed back onto his alpha.
“I do?” Cas wrapped his arms around Dean to pull him in even closer.
“Yeah, you smell less like the drugs and more like you.”
The oven timer beeped. Cas sighed, “As much as I would like not to move right now, I don’t want dinner to burn. Are you hungry? Do you want to eat right now or wait a bit?”
Dean stretched and got up off of Cas and helped him off the couch. “Now sounds good. Then we can hop back into your nest after dinner.”
~~~~~
Cas started rehab on Monday. Dean went down there after work to see Cas and meet with his counselor.
Cas’ counselor Garth was a pretty happy go lucky type of guy.
“Dean! It's good to meet you, man. Cas and I have been talking a lot about you. Here are some informational brochures about our rehab center, the process, dos and don'ts during recovery, and what to expect. Read them over and if you have any questions call or email me. Castiel here has a great shot at making a full recovery with you on his side. Because he was recently homeless there is going to be some added psychological issues. Just know that nesting is a perfectly normal stage of recovery, and it's important for you to not discourage any nesting behaviors and to go along with it.”
Dean nodded, he was going to do everything that he could to make sure that Cas got better. “He’s already started nesting. From the first full day he was in my apartment. We spent the entire weekend in a nest he made on the couch looking at different rehab programs.”
Garth smiled. “That's good! It’s important for him to feel safe and secure. And with finding you less than a week ago, I agree with your decision to do an outpatient program. It’s important for Cas to feel like he’s not going to lose you. However, because he wants to quit cold turkey we are going to have to keep him here as an in patient for a leat a week to keep an eye on his withdrawl symptoms. You can still come during visitor hours everyday and I would recommend doing so. You’re his number one motivation for getting better, Dean. He wants so badly to be an alpha who deserves you and can take care of you. Having a reason to get clean like that, it's the best thing we can hope for in a patient. When they want to do it for themselves, and not because someone else is making them do it, is when we get the best results. And Cas seems very motivated.”
“So you think he has a good shot a beating this?” Dean asked hopefully.
Garth leaned in like he was going to tell Dean a secret. “I think if you stick with him, he has every shot at beating this.”
~~~~~
Dean went to visit Cas everyday after work. Cas seemed positive, but he was having a hard time sleeping thru the night. They were able to retreat to Cas’ room (with the door open) and Cas was able to get an hour of uninterrupted sleep if he curled around Dean with his nose in Dean’s neck scenting him.
The drug cocktail of clonidine, dicyclomine, klonopin and pot was helping keep the withdrawl symptoms manageable, but Cas still had a major addiction to kick. He was still having night sweats, waking up in the middle of the night and having problems keeping food down. Garth said it was all normal and that Castiel was dealing well. Dean still worried and couldn’t wait to bring his mate home.
~~~~~
When Castiel was finally able to come home with Dean his nesting only intensified as time went on. Now Dean couldn’t even see the couch, it was covered in so many blankets and pillows. His bedroom was even worse, Cas had taken the mattress and boxspring off of his frame (and dismantled the frame so that there was more room for the nest) to put it on the ground, and covered it with blankets and pillows as well.
“Where are you getting all this stuff Cas?” It all smelled clean and new, but Dean still had to make sure.
Castiel looked a little guilty. “Well, I’ve been cutting coupons to make the money that you give me for groceries last longer. Then I’ve been going to HomeGoods to see what they have on clearance that is nice and soft. Garth has reassured me that it is normal part of recovery and that I shouldn’t stifle my nesting instincts.”
“So you’ve been penny pinching with your allowance to be able to afford this?” Dean was impressed, he’d never been one for coupon cutting but it must be saving a ton if Cas can afford all of this. It wasn’t as if Dean gave him much money to start with, but Garth had said it would be good for Cas’ recovery if the alpha could feel like a useful part of the household, and feel like he was taking care of his omega.
So Dean gave him an allowance and Cas took over the grocery shopping and cooking. And now Dean came home to a healthy home cooked meal every day; Castiel even packed him salads to bring to work for lunch. They had their routine with Cas going to rehab when Dean left for work every weekday. Then Cas would swing by the grocery store to pick up things for dinner and lunch the next day for Dean and cook dinner each night to be ready by the time Dean got home.
“I also haven’t been spending money on drugs, even pot. I can’t, I need to save all I can to build a proper nest!” Castiel looked proud. Before meeting Dean he would have been spending all of his money on drugs and not nesting supplies.
Dean pulled Cas in for a hug. “I’m so proud of you baby.”
The next day at work Dean may have bought a ‘nesting set’ of matching fuzzy blankets and pillows that was on sale on Amazon.
Dean used to be a neat freak. He liked everything in its place in his sleek modern apartment. But he has gotten used to the comfort of a nest, and he’s not sure if he can go back.
Castiel’s nesting has gotten so bad, that Dean had to give him a low limit credit card (so what if it was the store card to HomeGoods, he was spending so much money there he might as well get the points for it). And almost every day Dean came home to something new in the nest (he’s stopped calling it his apartment, even in his head. Cas has turning it into their nest, and he could never go back).
Garth said that it was doing great things for Castiel’s recovery.
Cas hadn’t had a single opioid pill since he entered rehab, and his withdrawal symptoms had been minimal. He still smoked pot, but it seemed like he was just bumming hits off of others in his rehab program, never spending money on it or bringing it home. Apparently, smoking pot at the rehab was encouraged, as they could do it in a controlled environment where the staff could make sure it wouldn’t spiral out into other bad behavior and it would help keep some of the worst withdrawal symptoms at bay.
Other drugs where used to wean people off depending on their addiction ( Cas continued his lessened prescriptions of on clonidine, dicyclomine, and klonopin because of the positive response. When the withdrawal weaned and with the go-ahead from the doctor, hopefully in the future the only medication he'd need was to treat his anxiety. Even with his soulmate, sobriety was daunting but he was on the road to recovery) , but pot seemed to be the drug of choice as it was non habit forming itself and patients weren’t at risk for trading one addiction for another.
After being in rehab for a month, it brought a whole new level onto Cas’ nesting. They started painting as a safe way to express themselves and decompress. Dean let Cas spend extra money to buy canvases instead of painting on the paper that rehab gave them. Cas’ canvases were good. They were bright, cheery and hopeful. Cas painted fields of flowers with honeybees. Or a clock shop filled with little fairy workers. Or a classic muscle car out on the open road. Or pictures of Dean and Cas looking into each other's eyes and smiling.
Those ones were Dean’s favorites.
He even painted one of them hold hands, showing off their soulmate marks. They had completely filled up the wall space in the living room, and now were slowly creeping in the hallway towards the bedroom. Dean hoped that Cas would be done with rehab before there was no more wall space left in their nest.
Luckily for Dean (and their walls), the following month the counselors encouraged Cas to try to get a job again. Dean even helped him with his resume and his LinkedIn page. They set up meeting with recruiters who specialized in accounting and by the end of the month he had a full time job and graduated from going to rehab full time, to just one day a week after work for counselling and a checkup to make sure that he hadn’t slipped up.
Once Cas started working, the nesting eased up. He no longer brought home things everyday. He even returned a few thing that still had the tags on them. A month later Cas put the bed back together and got Space Bags for many of the over fluffed blankets and pillows.
“You ok, Cas?” Dean asked when he came home from work to find that the livingroom was no longer overtaken by blankets and pillows. Dean could even see the couch for the first time in four months. Granted, it still had way more pillows and blankets then it had on it before Cas moved in, but still...it felt a little off.
“Yes, Dean. As much as I was nesting, I think it's time to get our lives in order. I still want the apartment to be comfortable, but it was getting hard to walk around and move. It's much easier to get up in the morning when the bed is on the frame. And it's much easier to move around the apartment when you are not tripping all over blankets and pillows. Only the kitchen and bathroom were useable rooms. I apologize for going overboard with my nesting and overtaking your entire apartment with it.”
Dean shook his head. “It was fine, baby. I didn’t mind. Anything to help with your recovery. But if you are ready to clean up, I can help. Where did everything go anyways?”
“Space Bags are very efficient at making things take up much less space. So far I have been able to fit everything into the linen closet. That way if either of us gets hit with a nesting bug again, we won't have to spend anything to get a nest built up again.” Cas seals a bag and uses the vacuum to suck out all the air and show Dean. “See? It's now 1/10th the size.” Cas stood up and smiled, he looked proud of what he had done.
“That's great Cas. I didn’t know that those things actually worked.”
“Oh yes, Dean. I’m almost done cleaning up here. But maybe if you could set the table? I already have dinner in the oven. It still needs another 20 minutes. But I should be done here in that time. You can get out of your suit, set the table, and open a bottle of wine. Then we can have dinner.”
“Sounds great Cas.”